Contemplating Time
“There is no time with God: a thousand years, a single day; it is all one.”
My morning reading from the Liturgy of the Hours brought me the above verse from the Second Letter of Peter.
There is no time with God. Does this mean that the rushing I do to squeeze one more thing into my day is not from God? Or the list than ensures that every moment be used efficiently is not from God? Or the frustration I feel when something takes longer than I think it should? This is not from God, either?
Time is a gift. What would life be like without time? No before. No after. Only now. I have watched both my parents be robbed of a sense of time with Alzheimer’s disease. The past moves from remote to lost. The future is unavailable. Only the present exists, but with no sense of purpose. Time is a gift.
While our days may be numbered, each day contains twenty-four hours for every one of us—whether we are rich or poor, favored or un-favored, loving or spiteful, happy or miserable. Each of us gets twenty-four hours to a day. How do I choose to use that time? How do I portion out my day?
Sometimes, as I review my calendar, I see how crammed it is. I wonder to myself, how does this happen? How does it get so full? Do I have time for the important stuff? Am I living a full calendar or am I living a full life?
People talk about their busyness as though there is a competition to see who can fit the most into a day. If my day isn’t jam-packed, I must not be important. Or I am not getting enough done. Or I am falling behind on some goal that is probably not mine. What is the prize? What do we win? A gold watch?
This busyness competition crosses all ages. The local senior center has activities to fill any octogenarian’s day to the brim. Church communities praise those who are always there, willing to take on one more project. Work bleeds into evening and weekends. Employees who are not rushing fear layoffs. Children are scheduled from morning to night. A Girl Scout can earn the Less Stress Badge to learn how to manage her time!
Our sense of urgency, of being rushed, keeps us from being available to many wonderful gifts of life–spontaneous acts of kindness, interruptions that grow relationships, wandering through a neighborhood park, making faces with children, sitting quietly with God, watching a sunset while holding the hand of someone we love.
Science in the 20th Century split atoms, lengthened the average life span, shrank computers, measured time in nanoseconds, extended the height of skyscrapers, took us to the moon,multiplied many-fold the harvest from an acre of land—and yet an hour remains sixty minutes. A minute is still sixty seconds. A day is stuck at twenty-four hours.
Thomas Merton minces no words on the topic of overextended lives:
To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his or her work for peace.
So how do I move from the rhythm of 21st Century time to God’s time? “A thousand years, a single day; it is all one.” Occasionally, I remove my watch and live by the sun. I turn the bedside clock to the wall. I let go of the limits on my time—I read or walk or pray until I am done—and then I take a little transition time—and slowly move into whatever is next. I watch the natural world—squirrels, leaves, the sun, clouds. When someone important to me calls or visits I stop what I ‘m doing and sit down for a chat. I practice seeing the expansiveness of time rather than its limitation.
Time. Gift. Opportunity. Resource. Fullness. Life. Complete.
“There is no time with God: a thousand years, a single day; it is all one.”
Mary Lou Logsdon is a Spiritual Director and Retreat Leader in St. Paul. She received her MA in Theology and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction from St Catherine University. She can be contacted at logsdon.marylou@gmail.com.
